PC Game Fun Time

We’re all probably at least <em>familiar</em> with MapleStory, the Korean 2D side-scrolling massively multiplayer online roleplaying game (MMORPG), even if we’ve never played it. I’ve played World of Warcraft though, and I figure that’s close enough to be qualified to comment on this bizarrely inaccurate news article from Yahoo: Online divorcee jailed after killing virtual hubby. If anyone reading this has played MapleStory, maybe you can fill in the details in the comments below.

Upon first glance, I thought the article was talking about, you know, something that actually mattered: murder. People get “married” in online games all the time, and I could see fallout from the virtual world spilling over into the real world and resulting in a deadly altercation between the players behind the characters. But that’s not what this article is about. After reading through the article a bit, I realized that the “killing” they refer to is about a woman who “killed” her recently divorced husband’s character. So what, I thought? MapleStory probably has PVP. That should be a fairly common occurrence then, and the husband probably deserved it for dumping her abruptly anyway.

But no, when the article says “killing”, what it actually means is that the man hadn’t yet gotten around to changing his account password, and the woman logged in and deleted his character. So by attempting to sensationalize the news story, Yahoo actually made the story sound less serious to those in the know. Not that I think this rises to the level of meriting criminal hacking charges, mind you, which the woman is somehow facing.

So once you’ve managed to slog your way through the massively misleading inflammatory article (brilliant computer game journalism skills on display there, Yahoo), the real question you’re left with is: Does a jilted wife deserve anything close to a $1,000 fine and five years in prison for deleting a character in an MMORPG? I’m going to have to go with no — he should just get over it and learn a lesson from the school of hard knocks on not sharing his password with anyone — but depending on the extent of real-money trading (RMT) he was engaged in, he could possibly have suffered a severe financial loss from the deletion.

Which would bring up another question about whether a couple bits in an MMORPG’s database are actually worth the money people are willing to pay for them, but that’s another gargantuan topic in itself.

In light of the large amount of feedback from our first Fallout 3 related post, I think it is a good idea if we do another one.  This will also give me a chance to respond to those who charged I was being overly negative.

Don’t get me wrong, I think that Fallout 3 has great potential, and I don’t think any of the things mentioned in my previous post are going to be major concerns once we are actually playing the game.  Also, I am not one of the Fallout 1 & 2 diehards who think that any change in the formula of the originals or any influence from other games (especially Oblivion) is a bad thing.

In fact, I quite liked Oblivion, and played it quite extensively.  It did, however, have some flaws that ultimately limited the long term replay value of the game.  So, my hope for Fallout 3 is that it marries the best aspects of the previous Fallout games and The Elder Scrolls series, and avoids the worst.

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Odds are we all hate Digital Restrictions Management. Everyone has either been bitten by it either on games they’ve legitimately purchased (I know I have), or knows someone who was. Even pirates hate DRM because it requires 30 seconds of inconvenience to copy a cracked executable over the installed one (if any sarcasm over the “hassle” DRM creates for pirates versus the hassle it creates for paying customers is showing, please disregard it). But 2K Sports, bless them, has managed to invent out of whole cloth a folly even worse than DRM: serial code activation in a game that doesn’t ship with serial codes.

Presumably they meant to include serial codes in the boxed copies of NBA 2K9 for PC; it’s just that somewhere along the line of communication between headquarters and the packaging factory, that (possibly important) instruction was lost. Yes, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, and 2K Sports is now partially to blame. So if you bought NBA 2K9 for PC and tried to install it, you’d be the software installation equivalent of all dressed up with nowhere to go. Along with everyone else. It’s the same feeling as when you’re left wondering “Where’s the NFO file?”, except you’re out fifty bucks for the privilege.

2K Sports did manage to get on the ball really quickly and released a patch that is automatically downloaded during installation that removes the serial number activation. So anyone attempting to install the game now will never realize anything is amiss. Unless they aren’t connected to the Internet during the attempted installation. And unless they try it at some point in the future.

Just like with DRM, there’s another hidden folly inherent in this “solution”: what happens when the patch server goes offline? The server 2K Sports is using to support this game won’t be around indefinitely. Heck, the company won’t survive forever. Yet there are still people who get a retro gaming kick from playing PC games that are two decades old right at this very moment. Had those games used such an incompetent verification scheme during installation, you wouldn’t be able to play them today. 2K Sports owes it to posterity to release at least one good serial number for people twenty years down the line to be able to use to play the game, if that’s what they want to do.

But let’s be honest: Who in the hell plays sports games on PC?! I didn’t even realize anyone bothered publishing them. Is there any greater disparity between console gamers and PC gamers than the relative affections for sports games? Sports games on the PC seem so antithetical to the hardcore PC gaming crowd I know it’d be like rick-rolling a Black Panther rally — though that is something I’d actually like to see.

The biggest, sharpest, and rustiest jagged double-edged sword in PC gaming is without a doubt the hardware itself. On the one hand, the ability to choose each component in a computer is a great positive, allowing a smooth upgrade cycle the envy of console gamers everywhere, the ability to get as much performance as you’re willing to pay for, and of course the sheer fun of assembling a custom rig that uses as many blue LEDs as your power supply can handle. But on the other hand, PC gaming can be a sheer hassle sometimes (whereas on locked-down console platforms games “just work”), and no one can argue that it’s cheaper. But those are the breaks, and everyone reading this blog is here because they’ve found that, on the balance, the positives outweigh the negatives.

I had a blast back in January 2007 specing and assembling the computer that is still my primary Windows XP gaming desktop. I built it to be able to play Supreme Commander, a really demanding real-time strategy game that fully utilized multiple core processors. The components were good for the time: an Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 processor, Nvidia GeForce 7950GT graphics card, and 2 GB of RAM all wrapped inside of an Antec P180 “black monolith” case (I got over my plexiglass and blue LED obsession in college). Since then I’ve added another 2 GB of RAM which, thanks to plummeting prices over time, cost 20% of the first 2 GB. I also replaced the video card last month when it steadfastly refused to stop frying itself at temperatures of 120°C, even with the sides of the case off. So I’m now running an ATI Radeon HD 4850, which is the best bang for your buck out of any video card. It runs Crysis at my 20″ monitor’s native resolution on high graphics settings with full anti-aliasing at a smooth frame rate, so yeah, it’s sweet.

Along the way something curious happened, though. I bought a cheap pre-made Dell computer to serve as my primary desktop, and installed Ubuntu GNU/Linux on it (yes, I’m that kind of computer user). In fact, I’m composing this very blog post on said computer right now. So I have a perfect computer dichotomy right now: the good one is used exclusively for playing games, and the other one is used for everything else. It’s almost as if my gaming computer was a dedicated game console — except, of course, it plays games that don’t suck with a peripheral that doesn’t suck. I’m sorry gamepads, but you’ll never match the sheer versatility of the mouse and keyboard. We have three PC gamers living in this house with nary a console in sight and that’s the way we like it.

As for what’s next with my gaming computer, I’m looking to upgrade the processor and motherboard in the intermediate future. Everything else should last me for awhile. And I have some recommendations to anyone building a new computer from scratch (or upgrading an existing one). Absolutely, positively get 4 GB of RAM. RAM is so cheap these days that maxing out is mandatory. Also, don’t spend too much on a video card. $150-200 is the price range you should be looking at (a range that is currently ruled by the ATI Radeon HD 4850, I might add). If you have more money than that to spend on a video card, buy a decent video card now, and then use the rest of the money in a year to a year and a half to get a better video card. You’ll get a lot more performance averaged over time for the same cost.

And to anyone who’s into PC gaming but hasn’t built a gaming computer — what are you waiting for? It’s one of the best aspects of the hobby. Start by maxing out your RAM as an interim upgrade and then plan more drastic measures. Relish in the freedom to upgrade that console gamers completely lack. You’re already committed to the hobby, so do everything in your power to have the best possible time with it.

Seeing as how both of my housemates have to get up two hours before I do to make it to work (their jobs suck, huh?), I typically go to bed long after they do. So since they’re not around to play games with at this hour, I need to find something else to occupy my time with. Hence this Late night discussion post, which I hope to turn into a regular feature. This is for everyone else who’s staying up late (or has the audacity to live in a different time zone).

The first Spore expansion is coming out in less than a month. Details are sparse, but it’s looking like it’ll cost $20 and consist of new parts for the creature/object editor and … that’s it. If you aren’t thoroughly underwhelmed by this, you must be in the target market.

Does this piss anyone else off? I remember way back when I used to play The Sims (don’t give me that look). The expansions for that game seemed to serve no purpose other than to enrich Will Wright. I wouldn’t even call them proper expansion packs, merely content packs. I couldn’t justify spending my hard-earned money on them, and so I didn’t. So I’m very disappointed that Spore seems headed down exactly the same money treadmill that The Sims perfected, but seeing as how Electronic Arts is running the show, would you have expected it to go down any other way?

I suppose it might be time to write off Spore. I wasn’t impressed with the initial release, but I held out hope that it would get on the right track with the inevitable expansions. “They didn’t have enough time to flesh out all of the stages of the game,” I reasoned. “They should be fixing it soon.” In hindsight, the naiveté inherent in these statements is hysterical. Are there any serious PC gamers left who haven’t given up on Spore yet? I’d love to hear from you. Please convince me that Spore can still be saved, because I’m thinking that all signs point to fat chance.

Over the past several months, Cyde Weys and I have been enjoying some of the finest multiplayer gaming yet devised.  Of course, I am referring to none other than Team Fortress 2.  This class based multiplayer FPS has provided us with countless hours of engrossing gameplay.

Team Fortress 2, or “Teef”, as we affectionately call it, has one key advantage over many other multiplayer shooters.  The class based nature of the game, the gamemodes, and the overall balancing greatly encourage and reward team based gaming.

This format provides a lot of value to gamers who actively play often with friends.  Cyde Weys, another friend of ours, and I often form a formidable trio when we play.  In fact, I very rarely play the game without being accompanied by at least one friend.  This is because it is simply a great deal more fun playing with people you know.  The three of us together are often capable of dominating the scoring on servers, in large part due to our ability to coordinate with one another.  This is often a decisive advantage over an enemy team with less cooperation.

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The long wait is finally over, and after many years of hype, Spore has finally been released. This news was immediately greeted with a huge backlash against the malfeasant Digital Restrictions Management included with the game, which limits each purchased copy of the game to three installations — ever. I’ve written about DRM multiple times in the past, so I don’t feel compelled to take this opportunity to make any statement on DRM beyond reiterating how terrible it is for the consumer. And judging by all of the negative reviews Spore’s DRM has engendered on Amazon, even Electronic Arts has to be questioning whether including such draconian DRM was worth it. As I write this, Spore has 934 one-star reviews out of 1,011 reviews total, a number that is only going to increase dramatically over the coming days.

No, what I really want to address about Spore is its failure to live up to the amazing game play that it once promised, an issue that has been mostly lost amongst all of the (justifiable) complaining over the DRM (although Ars Technica didn’t fail to take notice). What really sold me on Spore from the first times I read about it was the promise of truly being able to design a creature. I remember marveling at how all aspects of a creature were supposed to be procedurally generated based solely on the design of the creature. The characteristics of the legs you designed would affect how well the creature would be able to move — its gait, its stride, its jumping height, etc. Ditto for every other component of the animal. I was instantly fantasizing of three-legged creatures with a single exceptionally long appendage used for striking. Such a feature has never evolved naturally on Earth, either by chance or because natural selection is not conducive to creating it. The real appeal of Spore, to me, was being able to test out all sorts of bizarre intelligently designed body configurations that do not appear in the natural world to find the most effective ones. And it would be very telling if the most effective predators in the games looked curiously similar to tigers, lions, and bears.

Combine this ability to truly design your own creature with the Sporepedia, which lets you match up your creations against everyone else’s, and Spore would’ve been amazing. I could easily see myself spending days trying to tweak the ultimate predator, able to kill as many of the creatures created by other people as possible. But alas, such a thing is not possible with Spore the way it ended up, because the ability to truly design creatures was removed at some point during the development process (probably because it ended up being exceptionally difficult to do correctly). Don’t get me wrong, you still have the ability to fine tune the appearance of creatures to your heart’s content, but it is all cosmetic. The finished version of Spore, unfortunately, shipped with an ability-generation system that is all-too-familiar, not revolutionary.

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Much ado has been made recently over the long anticipated post apocalyptic role playing game, Fallout 3.  After all, it has been just over ten years since the release of the last game in the series, Fallout 2.  (This is not counting Fallout Tactics, which was not a roleplaying game as such.)

Fan expectations for such a project are inevitably high.  Just as inevitably, fan complaints have been legion, especially from the die-hards who remember the original games with a fond sense of nostalgia.  There has been a great deal of worrying from these types that the new Fallout, which is being developed by Bethesda rather than the original developer Black Isle, will lack that special magic that made the first two games great.

Undeniably, a part of that magic was the mature nature of the games.  The original Fallout series featured many adult topics, including sex, prostitution, drugs, and drug addiction.  Unfortunately, times change, and many of these topics are no longer considered fit for video games, at least if they want to avoid the instant death sentence that is an “Adults Only” (AO) rating.  Games with this rating will not be sold in most brick and mortar stores, which means there is little hope of AO games achieving the kind of sales that less harshly rated titles often do.

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Welcome to PC Game Fun Time, the soon-to-be oft-updated gaming blog dedicated solely to computer gaming.  This blog came into existence thanks to the wonderful experience Grokmoo and I had with our previous collaborative venture Supreme Commander Talk, which we wrote for heavily from March 2007 through August 2007.  We loved blogging, but unfortunately our love of the actual game the blog was based on faded pretty quickly.  Hence we’ve created this blog, which is not focused on any particular computer game and so will have much better longevity.  As we move from game to game this blog will follow right along with us.

The most fun part of SupComTalk was the community that sprang up around the blog and we want to keep that vibe going with this one.  So please, leave comments anytime you have something worth saying.  We love interacting with the community, and we often get our best ideas from you.  Bookmark us and keep on checking back regularly, because we’re going to have lots of new content going live as we finish up designing the look of the site and go into full-on writing mode.

And just to give a little background information on who we are: Grokmoo and I met during our Freshman year of college and have been gaming together ever since.  After graduating college, we relished all of the additional free time (previously wasted on doing school work and studying) that could be devoted to gaming.  We’ve been PC gamers practically our entire lives, and we proclaim PC games to be the purest and most elevated videogames in existence.  Videogames were first developed on computers, dammit, and they continue to this day to be at their best on them.